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“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest against the earth’s sweet flowing breast” — Joyce Kilmer
I was startled one afternoon to receive a small potted plant from my friend, Helen, who begged with empassioned urgency, “Please take this ficus… Peter’s killing it!” One look at the small plant was all I needed to feel love and empathy for it, as I saw the few leaves it had were drooping, and it’s soil was dry with an air gap around the edges of dirt in its pot. The tiny ficus reminded me of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, with its diminutive size and stature so much smaller than one would expect from a tree.
This same ficus tree now stands taller than me, and has been a permanent resident in a place of honor by a south facing window in my living room for the last couple of decades. It has been through many repottings and branch trimmings over the years, and its trunk is now broader than my arm. I feel a sense of peace and love when I sit near this tree, in much the way I feel calmed when stroking a dog or cat’s fur.
We can benefit from feeling love and affection for plants every bit as much as we do for our furry companions, and some horticulturists have noted and written about how trees are pets, too. There are many similarities between plants and animals, with both depending on humans for care and optimal living conditions. Plants thrive when loved and cared for, and humans thrive when surrounded by supportive plants. Recent research studies have shown that plants have consciousness and the ability to communicate in ways that protect and defend their area, albeit on a much slower time scale than animals typically respond.
When I visited Dean Radin at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, I was delighted to see he had a lovely tree in his office. I write about this encounter in my book, Aura Advantage: How the Colors in Your Aura Can Help You Attain Your Desires and Attract Success:
“When plants have been hooked up to lie detector equipment, they’ve shown strong negative responses
to being around someone who simply thought about burning a leaf, and responded equally strongly when a visitor arrived who killed plants for a living. Other researchers working with plants have found that they respond in a positive way to someone who feels love for them. When I participated in recent plant studies conducted at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, I could see the auric field of the plant expand as it responded to IONS Senior Scientist Dean Radin, author of numerous scientific research papers investigating various psychic phenomena. The plant reacted each time Radin stroked a tender new leaf, or brought some water for it when its soil was dry. At the same time as the plant’s auric field increased, the ECG-like monitoring equipment displayed a prolonged spike.”
My favorite night spent in a hotel was unquestionably the night I spent in a tree house in Oregon… where I felt a sense of ecstatic bliss being ensconced in a tree’s energy field all night long. I highly recommend the experience of spending time in a tree house if you ever get the opportunity, as there is no way I can adequately or completely describe the sense of joy and wonder I felt as I felt the tree swaying me gently while holding me securely all night long.
If you feel somewhat skeptical that plants can demonstrate consciousness in any way humans can relate to, I encourage you to check out some of the amazing work being done at Damanhur, Italy, involving music of the plants. My first encounter with plants playing music was at the second international conference on science and consciousness in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when plants played music on Stephen Halpern’s synthesizer, with amazing results. As I reported for Enlightenment News in June 2000,
Steven Halpern and music of the plants
“The evening Steven Halpern concert was truly amazing, because Steven had a very special guest performer – a potted plant! A philodendron was hooked up to a MIDI and synthesizer with two alligator clipped wires, and it proceeded to play a beautiful, complex piece of very unique music. The philodendron’s song started off sounding a little bit sleepy, then gradually picked up tempo and proceeded to play a song unlike anything I’ve ever heard humans play! It was exquisite, and soothing, and fresh. The notes would rise and sustain on high notes that sounded something like someone playing a rising scale on a xylophone … then it would be quiet.
Next, a melody would begin with lower notes and a chord would hang suspended and sustained as notes rose slowly … bringing to my mind the vision of water flowing down gently from a plant’s leaves into the soil after a rain. I almost felt like I could smell the fresh air of the outdoors in this very large conference room! Halpern explained that some people from Damanhur in Italy had created the technology which allows any plant to “sing,” provided the plant is awake and willing to participate.”
To get an idea of just how amazing music of the plants truly sounds, I encourage you to watch a video filmed in Damanhur, Italy that shows talking, musical plants.
Cynthia and canine companion
I hope you’ll enjoy watching and sharing my YouTube video summary of Plants are Pets, Too — featuring me and my furry canine companion — and I hope you’ll feel free to leave comments either here on this blog or on my YouTube video page.
Noticing that plants have conscious awareness is something we can benefit from in many ways, not the least of which involves feeling the joy and comfort of having special relationships with them. And all of this helps expand what we imagine possible when we contemplate my favorite meditative question, “How good can it get?!”
Love always,
Cynthia Sue Larson
email Cynthia at cynthia@realityshifters.com
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Comments on: "Plants are Pets, Too" (13)
I love trees. Love, love, LOVE them. I have a tender respect for everything alive, but trees… Oh, words fail me. I think the opening line of the poem above summarises my feelings very well. : ) For some reason I believe they are the most perfect beings on this Earth.
It’s funny you should mention ficuses.
I don’t know if you know this – you probably do, but someone else reading this might not – but ficuses are supposed to be among the most sensitive of all house plants.
I don’t remember where I read this, as it was many years ago, but my own experience seems to confirm this. I don’t have the time – or, probably, the space – to write at length about this, but I can tell you that ficuses – as ridiculous and preposterous as this may sound to people – can read your “mind”.
And ALL plants can read your heart.
I have seen a ficus that was left for dead grow from a garbled little twig into a majestic creature almost two metres high (this in three years) when the right person nurtured it, with much love, back to health. And when that person had to leave – for good – the ficus sprouted tens of new buds FOUR MONTHS before its usual budding time… in time for the person who was leaving (three months later), and who loved it, to see its new bloom for one last time.
Or perhaps it was even trying to “coax” her to stay by showing her its beauty?
Because when she left, nothing – no nurture, no care – could prevent his shrivelling.
I don’t know what eventually happened to it – I’s rather not know – but the thought of that ficus is still one of the most heartbreaking memories in my life.
(No, I wasn’t the person that it loved… But still.)
Let this be a little “monument” to the memory of that loving ficus.
Thanks for sharing memories of that special ficus tree! I really appreciate your comments, and agree about the ficus being an especially sensitive plant. I truly treasure the sensitivity of my ficus tree, and was grateful that the one time I moved overseas for nine months and couldn’t bring my ficus with me, the apartment I lived in also had a similarly sized ficus tree! The owners of that tree were traveling the world for a year, and were thrilled to see how lovingly I’d cared for it while they were away, as I was thrilled to see my tree had been similarly nurtured while I was gone (since it was too big to bring with me to Switzerland).
i do admire psychics for their ability to sense some weird stuffs like predict the future or something**
How lovely. : )
Of course the ficus – both of them, in this case – would have reacted to the special care that you were able to give it (and the carers of your ficus to yours). And not just physical care, of course; they react to the energy that’s coming from your heart. THAT – not the words per se – is what makes plants that are “talked” to thrive so well.
But I can’t help thinking that, in addition, those two ficuses simply KNEW that their owners were coming back. : )
Ours knew its beloved carer was not coming back. That ficus was MOURNING.
There is no other word for it.
Thank you again for this delightful post!
And thank you for allowing me to post about this.
It really means a lot. : )
Thank you for adding so much to this blog post! I share your sentiment about trees being perhaps the most perfect beings on this planet, and agree with you regarding the sentience of my ficus tree at home and the ficus tree in Switzerland, and their knowledge of plans for human caretakers to return, and when.
We humans can become extremely attached to our ficus trees, too. I constantly asked about my ficus tree while living abroad in Switzerland, and was reassured to hear it was in good health and spirits. Similarly, the people who’d sublet their apartment to us telephoned me after I’d been living in their place for nine months, asking if everything was OK. I told them there had been a small mishap with our cat and their bean bag chair… and they immediately inquired whether their ficus tree was OK. I said, “Your ficus tree is doing well.” They replied, “We don’t care about the bean bag chair — we’ve just been so concerned about whether our ficus tree was OK.” I reassured them that their ficus tree was doing splendidly, and told them how much it meant to me to have such a large, beautiful, healthy ficus tree in the apartment, because I adore ficus trees, and had to leave mine back home.
In retrospect, I suspect that it was no mere coincidence that I found an apartment to live in that had a ficus tree… and no mere coincidence that I was originally given this lovely ficus tree as a rescue plant back in 1984. I suspect these trees have a great deal to do with helping select a caregiver… and thank goodness some humans help make such arrangements possible, because ficus trees are some of the longest living and most rewarding plant companions one could ever hope for.
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Thank you, Cynthia, for all these tidbits that show so much of your heart. : )
It’s that what makes these pages so inspiring!
(Although I must admit, I still miss the old monthly issues, too. :-))
Yes, people can grow very attached to trees and plants in general.
I think I only told the following to one person before, and that person did not understand, so it doesn’t count. 🙂
There was a lovely tree very near my home years ago – a very tall, beautiful tree, as old as I am, or perhaps a little older, whose leaves glistened like silver when it caught the breeze, and it always reflected the last rays of the sun long after it had disappeared behind the roofs. And its rustling…! I could sit by my window – it was right across the street – and look at it and listen to it for a whole hour (no exaggeration).
And I always had an odd feeling that it somehow knows I am there and I love it. Sure, it was probably my own projection, but I really did feel a connection with that tree.
Then one day in February 2001 (I know the exact date) I woke up late, and the tree was gone. They felled it that morning. Just like that.
The part that I have never told anyone is that since that day I have not looked in that direction even though it is practically unavoidable. Yet I do avoid it. I have been avoiding it for eleven years now. That patch of empty sky is just too painful for me to see.
And it’s not just that tree. I literally mourn the passing of every single tree, unless it is “felled” by nature itself. That’s a different thing. It is still sad, but there is no place for resentment in it.
A few years ago I also discovered that trees have an incredibly profound symbolic presence in my subconscious. Before two people that were very close to me died (unexpectedly), I dreamt that two trees had been felled all of the sudden. And my horror was indescribable.
But I don’t want to end this on a gloomy note. : )
I like to think – nay, I am sure – that trees, too, survive in realms perhaps invisible to our ordinary vision, like everything that has been created exists since Time began, and it will exist until the end of Time.
So, that beloved tree of mine – all of my beloved trees, all that I have ever loved and will love – is still there.
It’s just that I, with my limited human vision, cannot quite see it at the moment. :- )
I’d have to check with you here. Which is not something I usually do! I enjoy reading a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!
“I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree” has been repeated over and over in my mind … and VOILA… you answered my prayer by telling me the name of the poet. I learned that poem as a child when The Encyclopedia Britanica was my only friend.
Thank you again for you wonderful sharing. Was sad I could not listen to Stephen’s guest’s music…
Has he created a CD of plants and their ‘communication’ ? Will have to find out and have a chat with these magnificent expressions of the divine.
Thanks for this article!
In the last several weeks I’ve had the persistent thought pass through my mind that it was time to get to know my houseplants as living beings, not inanimate art objects. Some of them have been in my home or office over 20 years.
It’s suddenly quite apparent to me that they are creatures with presence and that I wish to appreciate their company, beauty and air-cleaning capacities.
I am glad to see they are more and more people that have come to appreciate all plants do and to give them the affection and love they so richly deserve. People in the “green movement” often forget why its green. The earth is solar powered and it is plants and trees that gives us what is needed to sustain life. They provide the oxygen, food, and even shelters and homes for lots of little animals. All they ask for is sunlight, carbon dioxide, and soil. That has to be the best deal on the planet.
I believe plants do have a different kind of intellect. They are masters of chemical syntheses. They can synthesize organic compounds easily that would take years for a chemist to achieve. I think that this is the way they try to communicate with us. It has recently been shown that certain plants will synthesize a phermone for wasps when they are being eaten by caterpillars. The phermone attracts the wasps which then attack the caterpillars. I think perhaps this is the way plants may show their affection to us by making chemicals that perhaps we just havent understood yet is their way of saying “I love you too”